Читайте также: |
|
to put the money back, and you know what that means. We're in this thing
together. I want to see you through safely, but I can't do it without
your help. I had to go to Butler last night to see about a loan of his,
and I'm doing my best to get money from other sources. But I can't see
my way through on this, I'm afraid, unless you're willing to help
me." Cowperwood paused. He wanted to put the whole case clearly and
succinctly to him before he had a chance to refuse--to make him realize
it as his own predicament.
As a matter of fact, what Cowperwood had keenly suspected was literally
true. Stener had been reached. The moment Butler and Simpson had left
him the night before, Mollenhauer had sent for his very able secretary,
Abner Sengstack, and despatched him to learn the truth about Stener's
whereabouts. Sengstack had then sent a long wire to Strobik, who was
with Stener, urging him to caution the latter against Cowperwood. The
state of the treasury was known. Stener and Strobik were to be met by
Sengstack at Wilmington (this to forefend against the possibility of
Cowperwood's reaching Stener first)--and the whole state of affairs
made perfectly plain. No more money was to be used under penalty of
prosecution. If Stener wanted to see any one he must see Mollenhauer.
Sengstack, having received a telegram from Strobik informing him of
their proposed arrival at noon the next day, had proceeded to Wilmington
to meet them. The result was that Stener did not come direct into the
business heart of the city, but instead got off at West Philadelphia,
proposing to go first to his house to change his clothes and then to see
Mollenhauer before meeting Cowperwood. He was very badly frightened and
wanted time to think.
"I can't do it, Frank," he pleaded, piteously. "I'm in pretty bad in
this matter. Mollenhauer's secretary met the train out at Wilmington
just now to warn me against this situation, and Strobik is against it.
They know how much money I've got outstanding. You or somebody has told
them. I can't go against Mollenhauer. I owe everything I've got to him,
in a way. He got me this place."
"Listen, George. Whatever you do at this time, don't let this political
loyalty stuff cloud your judgment. You're in a very serious position and
so am I. If you don't act for yourself with me now no one is going to
act for you--now or later--no one. And later will be too late. I proved
that last night when I went to Butler to get help for the two of us.
They all know about this business of our street-railway holdings and
they want to shake us out and that's the big and little of it--nothing
more and nothing less. It's a case of dog eat dog in this game and
this particular situation and it's up to us to save ourselves against
everybody or go down together, and that's just what I'm here to tell
you. Mollenhauer doesn't care any more for you to-day than he does
for that lamp-post. It isn't that money you've paid out to me that's
worrying him, but who's getting something for it and what. Well they
know that you and I are getting street-railways, don't you see, and they
don't want us to have them. Once they get those out of our hands they
won't waste another day on you or me. Can't you see that? Once we've
lost all we've invested, you're down and so am I--and no one is going to
turn a hand for you or me politically or in any other way. I want you to
understand that, George, because it's true. And before you say you won't
or you will do anything because Mollenhauer says so, you want to think
over what I have to tell you."
He was in front of Stener now, looking him directly in the eye and by
the kinetic force of his mental way attempting to make Stener take the
one step that might save him--Cowperwood--however little in the long run
it might do for Stener. And, more interesting still, he did not care.
Stener, as he saw him now, was a pawn in whosoever's hands he happened
to be at the time, and despite Mr. Mollenhauer and Mr. Simpson and Mr.
Butler he proposed to attempt to keep him in his own hands if possible.
And so he stood there looking at him as might a snake at a bird
determined to galvanize him into selfish self-interest if possible. But
Stener was so frightened that at the moment it looked as though there
was little to be done with him. His face was a grayish-blue: his eyelids
and eye rings puffy and his hands and lips moist. God, what a hole he
was in now!
"Say that's all right, Frank," he exclaimed desperately. "I know what
you say is true. But look at me and my position, if I do give you this
money. What can't they do to me, and won't. If you only look at it from
my point of view. If only you hadn't gone to Butler before you saw me."
"As though I could see you, George, when you were off duck shooting and
when I was wiring everywhere I knew to try to get in touch with you. How
could I? The situation had to be met. Besides, I thought Butler was more
friendly to me than he proved. But there's no use being angry with me
now, George, for going to Butler as I did, and anyhow you can't afford
to be now. We're in this thing together. It's a case of sink or swim
for just us two--not any one else--just us--don't you get that? Butler
couldn't or wouldn't do what I wanted him to do--get Mollenhauer and
Simpson to support the market. Instead of that they are hammering it.
They have a game of their own. It's to shake us out--can't you see that?
Take everything that you and I have gathered. It is up to you and me,
George, to save ourselves, and that's what I'm here for now. If you
don't let me have three hundred and fifty thousand dollars--three
hundred thousand, anyhow--you and I are ruined. It will be worse for
you, George, than for me, for I'm not involved in this thing in any
way--not legally, anyhow. But that's not what I'm thinking of. What I
want to do is to save us both--put us on easy street for the rest of our
lives, whatever they say or do, and it's in your power, with my help, to
do that for both of us. Can't you see that? I want to save my business
so then I can help you to save your name and money." He paused, hoping
this had convinced Stener, but the latter was still shaking.
"But what can I do, Frank?" he pleaded, weakly. "I can't go against
Mollenhauer. They can prosecute me if I do that. They can do it, anyhow.
I can't do that. I'm not strong enough. If they didn't know, if you
hadn't told them, it might be different, but this way--" He shook his
head sadly, his gray eyes filled with a pale distress.
"George," replied Cowperwood, who realized now that only the sternest
arguments would have any effect here, "don't talk about what I did. What
I did I had to do. You're in danger of losing your head and your nerve
and making a serious mistake here, and I don't want to see you make
it. I have five hundred thousand of the city's money invested for
you--partly for me, and partly for you, but more for you than for
me"--which, by the way, was not true--"and here you are hesitating in
an hour like this as to whether you will protect your interest or not.
I can't understand it. This is a crisis, George. Stocks are tumbling on
every side--everybody's stocks. You're not alone in this--neither am I.
This is a panic, brought on by a fire, and you can't expect to come out
of a panic alive unless you do something to protect yourself. You say
you owe your place to Mollenhauer and that you're afraid of what he'll
do. If you look at your own situation and mine, you'll see that it
doesn't make much difference what he does, so long as I don't fail. If
I fail, where are you? Who's going to save you from prosecution? Will
Mollenhauer or any one else come forward and put five hundred thousand
dollars in the treasury for you? He will not. If Mollenhauer and the
others have your interests at heart, why aren't they helping me on
'change today? I'll tell you why. They want your street-railway holdings
and mine, and they don't care whether you go to jail afterward or
not. Now if you're wise you will listen to me. I've been loyal to you,
haven't I? You've made money through me--lots of it. If you're wise,
George, you'll go to your office and write me your check for three
hundred thousand dollars, anyhow, before you do a single other thing.
Don't see anybody and don't do anything till you've done that. You can't
be hung any more for a sheep than you can for a lamb. No one can prevent
you from giving me that check. You're the city treasurer. Once I have
that I can see my way out of this, and I'll pay it all back to you next
week or the week after--this panic is sure to end in that time. With
that put back in the treasury we can see them about the five hundred
thousand a little later. In three months, or less, I can fix it so that
you can put that back. As a matter of fact, I can do it in fifteen days
once I am on my feet again. Time is all I want. You won't have lost
your holdings and nobody will cause you any trouble if you put the
money back. They don't care to risk a scandal any more than you do. Now
what'll you do, George? Mollenhauer can't stop you from doing this any
more than I can make you. Your life is in your own hands. What will you
do?"
Stener stood there ridiculously meditating when, as a matter of fact,
his very financial blood was oozing away. Yet he was afraid to act. He
was afraid of Mollenhauer, afraid of Cowperwood, afraid of life and of
himself. The thought of panic, loss, was not so much a definite thing
connected with his own property, his money, as it was with his social
and political standing in the community. Few people have the sense of
financial individuality strongly developed. They do not know what it
means to be a controller of wealth, to have that which releases the
sources of social action--its medium of exchange. They want money, but
not for money's sake. They want it for what it will buy in the way
of simple comforts, whereas the financier wants it for what it will
control--for what it will represent in the way of dignity, force, power.
Cowperwood wanted money in that way; Stener not. That was why he had
been so ready to let Cowperwood act for him; and now, when he should
have seen more clearly than ever the significance of what Cowperwood was
proposing, he was frightened and his reason obscured by such things
as Mollenhauer's probable opposition and rage, Cowperwood's possible
failure, his own inability to face a real crisis. Cowperwood's innate
financial ability did not reassure Stener in this hour. The banker was
too young, too new. Mollenhauer was older, richer. So was Simpson; so
was Butler. These men, with their wealth, represented the big forces,
the big standards in his world. And besides, did not Cowperwood himself
confess that he was in great danger--that he was in a corner. That was
the worst possible confession to make to Stener--although under the
circumstances it was the only one that could be made--for he had no
courage to face danger.
So it was that now, Stener stood by Cowperwood meditating--pale,
flaccid; unable to see the main line of his interests quickly, unable
to follow it definitely, surely, vigorously--while they drove to his
office. Cowperwood entered it with him for the sake of continuing his
plea.
"Well, George," he said earnestly, "I wish you'd tell me. Time's short.
We haven't a moment to lose. Give me the money, won't you, and I'll
get out of this quick. We haven't a moment, I tell you. Don't let those
people frighten you off. They're playing their own little game; you play
yours."
"I can't, Frank," said Stener, finally, very weakly, his sense of his
own financial future, overcome for the time being by the thought of
Mollenhauer's hard, controlling face. "I'll have to think. I can't do it
right now. Strobik just left me before I saw you, and--"
"Good God, George," exclaimed Cowperwood, scornfully, "don't talk about
Strobik! What's he got to do with it? Think of yourself. Think of where
you will be. It's your future--not Strobik's--that you have to think
of."
"I know, Frank," persisted Stener, weakly; "but, really, I don't see how
I can. Honestly I don't. You say yourself you're not sure whether you
can come out of things all right, and three hundred thousand more is
three hundred thousand more. I can't, Frank. I really can't. It wouldn't
be right. Besides, I want to talk to Mollenhauer first, anyhow."
"Good God, how you talk!" exploded Cowperwood, angrily, looking at him
with ill-concealed contempt. "Go ahead! See Mollenhauer! Let him tell
you how to cut your own throat for his benefit. It won't be right to
loan me three hundred thousand dollars more, but it will be right to let
the five hundred thousand dollars you have loaned stand unprotected
and lose it. That's right, isn't it? That's just what you propose to
do--lose it, and everything else besides. I want to tell you what it
is, George--you've lost your mind. You've let a single message from
Mollenhauer frighten you to death, and because of that you're going to
risk your fortune, your reputation, your standing--everything. Do you
really realize what this means if I fail? You will be a convict, I tell
you, George. You will go to prison. This fellow Mollenhauer, who is so
quick to tell you what not to do now, will be the last man to turn a
hand for you once you're down. Why, look at me--I've helped you, haven't
I? Haven't I handled your affairs satisfactorily for you up to now? What
in Heaven's name has got into you? What have you to be afraid of?"
Stener was just about to make another weak rejoinder when the door
from the outer office opened, and Albert Stires, Stener's chief clerk,
entered. Stener was too flustered to really pay any attention to Stires
for the moment; but Cowperwood took matters in his own hands.
"What is it, Albert?" he asked, familiarly.
"Mr. Sengstack from Mr. Mollenhauer to see Mr. Stener."
At the sound of this dreadful name Stener wilted like a leaf. Cowperwood
saw it. He realized that his last hope of getting the three hundred
thousand dollars was now probably gone. Still he did not propose to give
up as yet.
"Well, George," he said, after Albert had gone out with instructions
that Stener would see Sengstack in a moment. "I see how it is. This
man has got you mesmerized. You can't act for yourself now--you're too
frightened. I'll let it rest for the present; I'll come back. But for
Heaven's sake pull yourself together. Think what it means. I'm telling
you exactly what's going to happen if you don't. You'll be independently
rich if you do. You'll be a convict if you don't."
And deciding he would make one more effort in the street before seeing
Butler again, he walked out briskly, jumped into his light spring
runabout waiting outside--a handsome little yellow-glazed vehicle,
with a yellow leather cushion seat, drawn by a young, high-stepping bay
mare--and sent her scudding from door to door, throwing down the lines
indifferently and bounding up the steps of banks and into office doors.
But all without avail. All were interested, considerate; but things were
very uncertain. The Girard National Bank refused an hour's grace, and he
had to send a large bundle of his most valuable securities to cover
his stock shrinkage there. Word came from his father at two that as
president of the Third National he would have to call for his one
hundred and fifty thousand dollars due there. The directors were
suspicious of his stocks. He at once wrote a check against fifty
thousand dollars of his deposits in that bank, took twenty-five thousand
of his available office funds, called a loan of fifty thousand against
Tighe & Co., and sold sixty thousand Green & Coates, a line he had been
tentatively dabbling in, for one-third their value--and, combining the
general results, sent them all to the Third National. His father was
immensely relieved from one point of view, but sadly depressed from
another. He hurried out at the noon-hour to see what his own holdings
would bring. He was compromising himself in a way by doing it, but his
parental heart, as well as is own financial interests, were involved.
By mortgaging his house and securing loans on his furniture, carriages,
lots, and stocks, he managed to raise one hundred thousand in cash, and
deposited it in his own bank to Frank's credit; but it was a very light
anchor to windward in this swirling storm, at that. Frank had been
counting on getting all of his loans extended three or four days at
least. Reviewing his situation at two o'clock of this Monday afternoon,
he said to himself thoughtfully but grimly: "Well, Stener has to loan me
three hundred thousand--that's all there is to it. And I'll have to see
Butler now, or he'll be calling his loan before three."
He hurried out, and was off to Butler's house, driving like mad.
Chapter XXVI
Things had changed greatly since last Cowperwood had talked with Butler.
Although most friendly at the time the proposition was made that he
should combine with Mollenhauer and Simpson to sustain the market, alas,
now on this Monday morning at nine o'clock, an additional complication
had been added to the already tangled situation which had changed
Butler's attitude completely. As he was leaving his home to enter his
runabout, at nine o'clock in the morning of this same day in which
Cowperwood was seeking Stener's aid, the postman, coming up, had handed
Butler four letters, all of which he paused for a moment to glance at.
One was from a sub-contractor by the name of O'Higgins, the second was
from Father Michel, his confessor, of St. Timothy's, thanking him for
a contribution to the parish poor fund; a third was from Drexel & Co.
relating to a deposit, and the fourth was an anonymous communication, on
cheap stationery from some one who was apparently not very literate--a
woman most likely--written in a scrawling hand, which read:
DEAR SIR--This is to warn you that your daughter
Aileen is running around with a man that she shouldn't,
Frank A. Cowperwood, the banker. If you don't believe
it, watch the house at 931 North Tenth Street. Then you
can see for yourself.
There was neither signature nor mark of any kind to indicate from whence
it might have come. Butler got the impression strongly that it might
have been written by some one living in the vicinity of the number
indicated. His intuitions were keen at times. As a matter of fact, it
was written by a girl, a member of St. Timothy's Church, who did live
in the vicinity of the house indicated, and who knew Aileen by sight
and was jealous of her airs and her position. She was a thin, anemic,
dissatisfied creature who had the type of brain which can reconcile
the gratification of personal spite with a comforting sense of having
fulfilled a moral duty. Her home was some five doors north of the
unregistered Cowperwood domicile on the opposite side of the street, and
by degrees, in the course of time, she made out, or imagined that she
had, the significance of this institution, piecing fact to fancy and
fusing all with that keen intuition which is so closely related to fact.
The result was eventually this letter which now spread clear and grim
before Butler's eyes.
The Irish are a philosophic as well as a practical race. Their first
and strongest impulse is to make the best of a bad situation--to put a
better face on evil than it normally wears. On first reading these
lines the intelligence they conveyed sent a peculiar chill over Butler's
sturdy frame. His jaw instinctively closed, and his gray eyes narrowed.
Could this be true? If it were not, would the author of the letter say
so practically, "If you don't believe it, watch the house at 931
North Tenth Street"? Wasn't that in itself proof positive--the hard,
matter-of-fact realism of it? And this was the man who had come to him
the night before seeking aid--whom he had done so much to assist. There
forced itself into his naturally slow-moving but rather accurate mind
a sense of the distinction and charm of his daughter--a considerably
sharper picture than he had ever had before, and at the same time a
keener understanding of the personality of Frank Algernon Cowperwood.
How was it he had failed to detect the real subtlety of this man? How
was it he had never seen any sign of it, if there had been anything
between Cowperwood and Aileen?
Parents are frequently inclined, because of a time-flattered sense of
security, to take their children for granted. Nothing ever has happened,
so nothing ever will happen. They see their children every day, and
through the eyes of affection; and despite their natural charm and
their own strong parental love, the children are apt to become not only
commonplaces, but ineffably secure against evil. Mary is naturally
a good girl--a little wild, but what harm can befall her? John is a
straight-forward, steady-going boy--how could he get into trouble? The
astonishment of most parents at the sudden accidental revelation of evil
in connection with any of their children is almost invariably pathetic.
"My John! My Mary! Impossible!" But it is possible. Very possible.
Decidedly likely. Some, through lack of experience or understanding,
or both, grow hard and bitter on the instant. They feel themselves
astonishingly abased in the face of notable tenderness and sacrifice.
Others collapse before the grave manifestation of the insecurity and
uncertainty of life--the mystic chemistry of our being. Still others,
taught roughly by life, or endowed with understanding or intuition,
or both, see in this the latest manifestation of that incomprehensible
chemistry which we call life and personality, and, knowing that it is
quite vain to hope to gainsay it, save by greater subtlety, put the best
face they can upon the matter and call a truce until they can think. We
all know that life is unsolvable--we who think. The remainder imagine a
vain thing, and are full of sound and fury signifying nothing.
So Edward Butler, being a man of much wit and hard, grim experience,
stood there on his doorstep holding in his big, rough hand his thin
slip of cheap paper which contained such a terrific indictment of his
daughter. There came to him now a picture of her as she was when she was
a very little girl--she was his first baby girl--and how keenly he had
felt about her all these years. She had been a beautiful child--her
red-gold hair had been pillowed on his breast many a time, and his hard,
rough fingers had stroked her soft cheeks, lo, these thousands of times.
Aileen, his lovely, dashing daughter of twenty-three! He was lost in
dark, strange, unhappy speculations, without any present ability to
think or say or do the right thing. He did not know what the right thing
was, he finally confessed to himself. Aileen! Aileen! His Aileen! If her
mother knew this it would break her heart. She mustn't! She mustn't! And
yet mustn't she?
The heart of a father! The world wanders into many strange by-paths of
affection. The love of a mother for her children is dominant, leonine,
selfish, and unselfish. It is concentric. The love of a husband for his
wife, or of a lover for his sweetheart, is a sweet bond of agreement and
exchange trade in a lovely contest. The love of a father for his son
or daughter, where it is love at all, is a broad, generous, sad,
contemplative giving without thought of return, a hail and farewell to a
troubled traveler whom he would do much to guard, a balanced judgment of
weakness and strength, with pity for failure and pride in achievement.
It is a lovely, generous, philosophic blossom which rarely asks too
much, and seeks only to give wisely and plentifully. "That my boy may
succeed! That my daughter may be happy!" Who has not heard and dwelt
upon these twin fervors of fatherly wisdom and tenderness?
As Butler drove downtown his huge, slow-moving, in some respects chaotic
mind turned over as rapidly as he could all of the possibilities in
connection with this unexpected, sad, and disturbing revelation. Why had
Cowperwood not been satisfied with his wife? Why should he enter
into his (Butler's) home, of all places, to establish a clandestine
relationship of this character? Was Aileen in any way to blame? She was
not without mental resources of her own. She must have known what she
was doing. She was a good Catholic, or, at least, had been raised
so. All these years she had been going regularly to confession and
communion. True, of late Butler had noticed that she did not care so
much about going to church, would sometimes make excuses and stay at
home on Sundays; but she had gone, as a rule. And now, now--his thoughts
would come to the end of a blind alley, and then he would start back, as
it were, mentally, to the center of things, and begin all over again.
He went up the stairs to his own office slowly. He went in and sat down,
and thought and thought. Ten o'clock came, and eleven. His son bothered
him with an occasional matter of interest, but, finding him moody,
finally abandoned him to his own speculations. It was twelve, and then
one, and he was still sitting there thinking, when the presence of
Cowperwood was announced.
Cowperwood, on finding Butler not at home, and not encountering Aileen,
had hurried up to the office of the Edward Butler Contracting Company,
which was also the center of some of Butler's street-railway interests.
The floor space controlled by the company was divided into the
usual official compartments, with sections for the bookkeepers, the
road-managers, the treasurer, and so on. Owen Butler, and his father
had small but attractively furnished offices in the rear, where they
transacted all the important business of the company.
During this drive, curiously, by reason of one of those strange
Дата добавления: 2015-11-14; просмотров: 40 | Нарушение авторских прав
<== предыдущая страница | | | следующая страница ==> |
by Theodore Dreiser 17 страница | | | by Theodore Dreiser 19 страница |